creating a bye-racial world

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no h8

This is so right on! Thank you, Karen Finney. I’m so glad my (white)grandparents allowed me in to their lives. And so are they! It’s the “little” things…

On another note, this sentence, “the very existence of antimiscegenation laws had been enacted for the purpose of perpetuating the idea of white supremacy,” speaks to the very reason I fell down this rabbit hole I’ll now call the mulatto trail. I realized one day that anti-miscegenation and the one-drop rule perpetuate the idea of white supremacy, and that by subscribing to that antiquated rule I was upholding that ridiculous notion. The anti-miscegenation thing has legally been eradicated, but ask any interracial couple who has walked down a street together, and I’m sure they’ll tell you that on more than one occasion they’ve been given the evil-eye or gawked as if they were freaks of nature. Or both. And as for the one-drop rule, head on over to my youtube channel, scroll through the comments, and you’ll see that it looms large in the consciousness. And many people don’t seem to be willing to let it go.

California Prop 8 Gay Marriage Ruling a Win For American Values

Yesterday’s ruling that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional reaffirms a long-held American value that no matter how you try to spin it, separate is not equal. While some may not agree with same-sex marriage, history should remind us that our Constitution calls us to recognize that the laws in it apply equally, not to be picked apart to support a political agenda or bias. The arguments being used against same sex marriage are frighteningly similar and equally offensive as those once used against interracial marriage. While a Gallup poll in 1967 found that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage, it’s almost hard to remember just how far we’ve come.

I was 16 years old before I was allowed in my grandfather’s home in Greensboro, North Carolina. That’s how long it took for him to even begin to re-think his shame over having a mixed-race granddaughter. He believed, as did many at the time, miscegenation was wrong on moral and legal grounds. Thankfully for me, my parents disagreed. They were married in New York City and had me despite the fact that it was illegal in their home states of Virginia and North Carolina to do so. Thankfully for our country, in the case of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court saw beyond the fear and bigotry of the moment and ruled that antimiscegenation laws violated fundamental American values of Due Process and Equal Protection Under the Law as guaranteed to every American by our constitution.

Just as some used to say that marriage is only valid between a white man and white woman, some now argue that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Arguments have also been made that same-sex marriage dilutes the institution of marriage, just as similar arguments suggested that interracial marriage diluted the white race. My personal favorite absurd justification says that (despite the idea that we are all God’s childrenand loved equally) gay marriage is against the laws of God and nature. That argument was used by Leon M. Bazile, the judge in the initial case against the Lovings, who said:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Loving case also recognized that the very existence of antimiscegenation laws had been enacted for the purpose of perpetuating the idea of white supremacy:

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.

Similarly, as Judge Vaughn Walker today affirmed, denying gay couples the right to marry, not only denies basic civil rights, liberty, and freedom, but also codifies bigotry.

Karen Finney is a political analyst for MSNBC and an independent consultant working with political and corporate clients in the areas of political and communications strategy. She brings over 16 years of experience in national politics and campaigns ranging from the Clinton administration to New York State to the Democratic National Committee.

4 thoughts on “no h8”

If marriage is the foundation of the family then clearly nature never had any objection to interracial marriage. We know this because blacks, white, asians can all mix and procreate as long as they are mixed sexes. In ending racial discrimination in marriage, the law simply caught up with what nature had been telling mankind all along.

In same sex marriage, nature does not allow these couples to procreate and form a family. They have to get someone’s help if they want to be a family. In gay marriage the law is working against nature.

Do not compare interracial marriage to gay marriage. That’s like comparing being black to being gay. The issues are very different. Unless you believe there is no difference between a man and a woman (and clearly there are several) then there is no logic reason to believe a man can exchange a woman for a man as his marriage partner.

So, what I’m hearing here is that according to nature’s law, only men and women who can procreate should be allowed to marry? What about someone like me who has had a hysterectomy and can no longer bear children? Should I be banned from marrying because I can’t procreate? What about hetero couples who choose not to have children—should they be banned from marrying because they don’t want to add to the population?

Childless hetero couple have to “get help” quite often from adoption agencies, artificial insemination, or in vitro fertilization to create a family. I guess that’s wrong too, since it goes against “nature.”

I have a really hard time understanding why people want to deny others something that has so much potential for good in this world. Why not campaign against divorce instead? That seems to be a more real threat to hetero marriage than anything else. But then, it’s easier to tell other people how they should be leading their lives, isn’t it?

TexasTrailerParkTrash – Very well said. I completely agree that interracial and gay marriage are very similar arguments with sentiments that come from the same place. It’s an unfamiliar situation that makes people uncomfortable. People don’t like to feel uncomfortable and will find any legal means, biblical verse, or “scientific” reasoning to support their argument. Very sad.